John Romita senior has died at the age of 93. His son John Romita junior has now announced this with a heavy heart. His father passed away peacefully. Death is a great loss to the Marvel comics world.
What is John Romita Sr. known for? When it comes to the Marvel Universe, most of you probably have Stan Lee in mind. But Lee only writes the comics. John Romita Sr. was the animator of The Amazing Spider-Man comic for a number of years. He replaced Steve Ditko as an artist in 1966, shortly afterwards he was hired as art director at Marvel.
So it’s thanks to him that Spider-Man got his signature drawing style. Romita’s first encounter with a superhero came in 1954 when he illustrated the new edition of Captain America.
Now his son, who is an artist himself, hopes to be able to follow in his father’s footsteps. You can read his touching words in the English original here:
The father-son team even drew the first Spider-Man comic strips together. The first comic strips were published in 1970. At the time, Romita junior was 14 years old.
In the meantime, Romita senior was even employed by the competition. In 1957 he left Marvel and drew stories for girls at DC Comics. But the series was discontinued in 1965 and the artist returned to Marvel, where he drew his greatest success.
Did he still draw comics at the age of 93? No, he stopped doing it decades ago. John Romita Sr. left The Amazing Spider-Man comic back in the 1970s when he became art director at Marvel. There he created “Spidey Super Stories”, a new series aimed at children.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently thrilling cinema-goers. Check out the trailer for the film here:
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How do fans react? On Twitter, the spideymemoir account shares an image from the Spider-Man comic. Here the suit is seen being left in the trash. Rain pours down and spoils the mood:
Another user has found a comparison image that shows the scene seen in the comic as a film adaptation:
The fans are also mourning in the Reddit forum. They thank the draftsman for his wonderful work and are very saddened by his death.
The mood in the comments is sad but grateful:
What is the Spider-Man universe doing these days? In addition to the currently running movie, which even dethroned The Dark Knight as best superhero film, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is in development. A few weeks ago we were able to marvel at the first trailer for the gameplay.
But currently some video game adaptations are overtaking the former cinema giant Marvel: Video games are replacing Marvel as the eternal star on the screen